Massively http://massively.joystiq.com Massively http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/http://massively.joystiq.com/media/feedlogo.gif Massively http://massively.joystiq.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/<![CDATA[Judge awards Stargate Worlds assets to Cheyenne Mountain, MGM terminates license [Updated]]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/11/10/judge-awards-stargate-worlds-assets-to-cheyenne-mountain-mgm-te/http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/11/10/judge-awards-stargate-worlds-assets-to-cheyenne-mountain-mgm-te/http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/11/10/judge-awards-stargate-worlds-assets-to-cheyenne-mountain-mgm-te/#commentsFiled under: , ,

The saga of Stargate Worlds took another interesting twist this week as an Arizona judge ended the legal battle over the assets of Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment. The company -- which is currently languishing under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection -- will retain control of all its game-related resources. The action settles a fraud complaint initiated by Cheyenne against Dark Comet Games and Fresh Start Studios, both formed by former Cheyenne employees looking to use company materials for the Stargate Resistance shooter released earlier this year.

Though the ruling grants Cheyenne full control of its Stargate assets, completion of the long-suffering Stargate Worlds MMORPG is doubtful due to the recent expiration of the IP license from MGM Studios. Cheyenne founder Gary Whiting told the gaming blog Nerdvana that MGM issued a termination notice on November 3rd. While the notice doesn't affect Stargate Resistance, it does provide a huge obstacle for MCA Financial Group's bid to save the license for Stargate Worlds. MCA is a Phoenix-based company called in to supervise Cheyenne's restructuring under Chapter 11.

[Update: Apparently, there's some discrepancy with what Nerdvana is reporting, or what Gary Whiting is saying. This blog post explains a bit more on how the judge actually didn't award full control of SGW back to Cheyenne.]

MassivelyJudge awards Stargate Worlds assets to Cheyenne Mountain, MGM terminates license [Updated] originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 10 Nov 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Stargate Worlds Studio Head Dan Elggren told videogamer.com in an interview that there will be an open beta test for the game immediately before the commercial launch date. That's not a shock; most MMO developers these days run a small open beta test in the one or two weeks immediately preceding launch.

Elggren promised that the beta will be "pretty solid product," and pointed to Funcom's Age of Conan open beta event as the best example of what Cheyenne Mountain/Firesky is trying not to do. Our readers who participated in that beta may remember terrible performance and stability issues.

In both videogamer.com's interview and in a chat with us earlier in the summer, the SGW team has acknowledged that open beta events are more marketing tools than technical ones. The closed beta (which will begin within the next few weeks) might be a different kind of affair though.

[Via Ten Ton Hammer]

MassivelyStargate Worlds open beta to come right before launch and not suck originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Stargate SG-1 actor Christopher Judge visited Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment's game development studio to check out Stargate Worlds last week. Judge played the part of Teal'c -- the Jaffa warrior on the SG-1 team -- for the entire run of the TV series and in the movies The Ark of Truth and Continuum, and has appeared on Stargate Atlantis as well.

Members of the development teamed gushed about how awesome he was on the Stargate Worlds community site. "I wouldn't have thought I was the type to get embarrassed and feel like a blushing teenage girl (no offense to blushing teenage girls) when meeting a star like Christopher Judge but apparently I totally am," said one of the team members. The team got the impression that Judge was "SUPER excited" about the game.

CME/FireSky put up a gallery of pictures from the visit. The studio was also visited by Formula1 race car driver Jonathan Summerton, which seems kind of random. If you want pics of that event, there's a gallery for that too.

MassivelyTeal'c visits Stargate Worlds originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Chris Klug is Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment's Creative Director. He sets the vision for what kind of artistic and narrative experience players of Stargate Worlds will have. It's comforting for would-be SGW players, then, that Klug seems well educated in the basics of storytelling known to novelists and screenwriters.

Klug describes his storytelling philosophy in an article at RPG Vault. He talks about driving the story and characterization forward with each moment of game-play, and evoking a wide variety of emotions. You'd find many of the techniques and concepts he describes in a screenwriting textbook at USC. The folks at Cheyenne have told us before that SGW will stand out for its approach to storytelling, but this is the first evidence we have that they are on the right track.

Oh, and the article features two new SGW-related images.

MassivelySGW's Chris Klug explains his storytelling philosophy originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 30 Nov 2007 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Stargate Worlds' combat is mostly ranged, is more action-oriented than the combat in other MMORPGs, and utilizes a cover system. Before today, that was all we knew. Cheyenne Mountain's Josh Kurtz (a familiar face, now) wrote up a developer journal describing Cheyenne's ambitions for cover-based combat. The journal is humorously presented in the form of an interrogation by a Jaffa. Stargate SG-1 geeks will smile.

Most objects in the world will act as cover, and players will be extremely vulnerable in open spaces like grassy fields or desert dunes. Kurtz described a scenario in which a player in Faction #1 might sit in an ambush position, waiting for a player in Faction #2 to wander into the open. If the player from Faction #2 is dumb enough to do that in a PvP area, he or she is likely to get ganked. On the other hand, he or she could move around in the woods nearby; it would take longer, but it would be stealthier and more secure.

Kurtz also said that humanoid NPCs will be the most common enemies, and since humanoids will build structures and trenches and stick near them, most combat will be in cover-rich areas

MassivelySGW dev interrogated by Jaffa, reveals combat secrets originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 27 Nov 2007 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The slow but steady trickle of Stargate Worlds stuff continued today when Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment published 11 new concept art and screenshot images for the game in the gallery at its official website. The images include a screenshot of the Ancient planet Agnos, concept art for a Goa'uld player character, and screenshots and concept art for various buildings. It's not much, but we did say it was a "trickle," didn't we?

It looks like Cheyenne is making pretty good use of the Unreal engine but these screenshots don't seem very game-play-ish so it's tough to say for sure. The concept art is definitely worth a look, though.

MassivelyCheyenne releases 11 new Stargate Worlds images originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 23 Nov 2007 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment revealed back in March that it would be outsourcing some of its game design jobs for Stargate Worlds, a lot of people took that as a bad sign. Outsourcing game design? That's kind of like the Conan O'Brien sketch in which Conan absurdly outsourced the show's writing to India (though, if the WGA strike keeps going for too long, you never know what might happen).

Stratics interviewed Kevin Balentine this week, and he defended the decision to outsource design by saying that it cuts back on a lot of the detail-oriented busywork that consumes lead designers' time, so that time can be spent designing more unique, story-based missions or quests. Maybe that will alleviate some people's fears. The interview is fairly short, but Balentine also talks about instancing, squad-based combat, and a couple of other things.

MassivelyStratics interviews Stargate Worlds' Kevin Balentine originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 14 Nov 2007 23:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Information about Stargate Worlds is oh-so-sparse. That's why we were excited to hear that MMORPG.com was to host a live chat with several of the developers behind the game. The chat happened yesterday and we did get some juicy details on a few things. Player quests will be tied into the story line. We're guessing they'll be similar Lord of the Rings Online's quests. Also, quests can be acquired through means other than talking to NPCs. The game's puzzle system allows archaeologists and scientists to level up in their fields outside of combat.

And yes, it's been confirmed that the character advancement is level-based. A fan asked whether it was level or skill-based and the developer didn't even understand what the fan meant by "skill-based." If only the MMO industry could remember the days before EverQuest! The developers consistently dodged questions like "what makes Stargate Worlds better or unique compared to competing games" by either saying "it's Stargate" or, well ... that's pretty much it. Even when they were asked a question along the lines of "what makes this game special, and don't say anything about it being Stargate," they still sneakily fell back on "it's Stargate."

They did say that the combat system is unique because it's influenced by squad-based shooters, but even that sounds strangely familiar. Hopefully we'll see some more promising info come up as Cheyenne gets further along in SGW's development cycle. In the mean time, read the vagueness that is the chat log or the summary article.

MassivelyStargate Worlds dev chat is not entirely without new info originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 09 Nov 2007 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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